From Analog Activism to Digital Display: Curating Historic Radio Recordings and Oral Histories

• In Event: Couriers of Justice: Print and Radio Activists and Social Change

Abstract

As national media coverage of the civil rights movement trailed off in the late 1960s, a number of new, local media emerged. These media both reflected the gains of the civil rights movement—they were owned and staffed by people of color, for instance—and sought to extend them by inspiring, educating, and prodding their home communities into action. Crucial among these new media were a handful of small but influential radio stations that blended music and talk to achieve activist goals. This paper will address these media with a focus on these radio stations and how they used sound to advocate for social justice.

It will also demonstrate the results of a digital humanities project built to display and contextualize oral histories, texts, and sound recordings. Working with my colleague, Joshua Davis, I have digitized approximately 150 historic radio recordings from three stations that operated in the 1970s and early 1980s. I am working with the Digital Innovation Lab at Carolina on a project, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, to conceive and execute an interactive project around these recordings. I seek to present my results as part of this panel.

Author

• Seth Kotch, UNC-CH